The Tears of an Angel
by Bandit3
Summary: TK and Kari are best friends...like twin angels. But when an angel falls, will one of them have to live without the other? (Takari)


The Tears of an Angel  
A Digimon Fanfic by Bandit O_o  
  
"Let me know what you are; an angel child or a radiant star...you're far away from me, far away from me. So far away from me...come a little closer, just a little..."*  
  
I never expected it to happen. None of us did. It was as if one minute he was there, and the next minute...he wasn't.  
As long as I live, I will never forget that terrible moment. We were all downtown, getting rid of an evil Digimon that had wandered into our world. People were screaming and running, but we were happy; this was a piece of cake, a single Digimon against all six of ours. Davis and Flamedramon had just blasted it into a huge concrete wall, which cracked and rumbled as the Digimon smashed into it. Standing up and shaking its ponderous head, the evil creature lumbered toward us again on flagging limbs, with cement dust floating around it.  
TK ran across the street, sprinting to a place where he could better see the battle as it moved off down the block. TK, my golden angel, running to the rescue. I watched him, but didn't follow; Nefertimon had taken a bad hit early on and was resting as Salamon in my arms, working up the strength to go back into the fray.  
The battle was already won; the Digimon could barely stand upright. It got in one last hit, though; swinging its train-caboose of a tail, it sent Flamedramon and Halsemon both flying into a building. Windows shattered, and they slid to the ground, reverting to their In-Training forms as they fell. Davis and Yolei ran over, alarmed, but the Digimon weren't badly hurt, just a little shaken up.  
"Hey, TS, I guess you'll have to take this one!" Davis yelled.  
TK nodded and grinned, shooting me a watch-this look. I grinned back, mouthing, 'showoff.' He shrugged and turned back to the battle.  
"Angemon! Go for it!"  
The great angel Digimon nodded. "Hand of Fate...hrragh!" he shouted, sending a blast of coherent light toward its foe. The evil Digimon howled and reared onto its hind legs, but it was over; it reformatted in a wash of sparkles, leaving the battered street empty of threats.  
I cheered, beginning to run toward TK, who was absolutely glowing with pride. He hated evil so much; he was so pleased every time we won a victory against it. As he turned toward me, I could see his face, lit up like a lamp, his bright blue eyes triumphant.  
I never took more than those first few steps. As I ran, I noticed something strange, and slowed...then stopped. A fine dust was drifting around TK, landing on his shoulders and head. When I stopped, I could also hear a faint noise. Frowning, I looked closer.  
Davis, Yolei, Ken and Cody were jogging towards us, carrying their Digimon and looking pleased with a job well done.  
TK looked at me, confused. "What's wrong?" he called, a little too loud, and I realized that his ears were probably still ringing from the explosions of the battle. He'd been closer to it than I had. I listened carefully, not answering. The sound was growing steadily louder...  
Suddenly, I recognized it.  
It was the sound of crumbling stone.  
At that moment, it became louder, and I saw that the cracks in the wall behind him, created when the evil Digimon had impacted, were spreading, widening... A chunk of the concrete crumbled, sending a shower of dust and fragments down to patter on the sidewalk. TK didn't hear it...  
I realized what was going to happen a split second before it did, and a blade of ice plunged into my stomach.  
"TK!" I yelled. "TK, look out-"  
It all happened at once. I cried out my warning; TK, about to turn and investigate the bits of stone raining on him from behind, turned back to look at me with startled blue eyes; the cracking became a rumbling and then a thunderous roar; Davis and the others let out shouts of alarm-  
And with a resounding crash, the damaged wall of concrete collapsed, burying my angel under huge chunks of stone.  
For a split second, I felt nothing. My ears rang with echoes upon echoes of the crash of the toppling wall, and my body felt numb. I dimly heard someone screaming, but at first I didn't recognize my own voice... Then, suddenly, reality came back, and I was screaming, crying, stumbling across the street over piles of rubble that shifted under my feet, tripping me, slowing me down. I fell to my knees at the edge of the pile and began pulling at the shattered stones, choking on my own tears and the heavy cloud of gritty dust thrown up by the collapse.  
Behind me, I heard the others come running up, all yelling questions and commands. Someone was Digivolving their Digimon, but I was too far gone to care. A hand tugged at my arm, trying to guide me away, and I wrenched out of its grasp. I had to do something, I had to get him out...  
I was abruptly grabbed by the arms and bodily dragged away. Flailing and kicking at my captors, I recognized Davis and Ken. Fury welled up in me. They didn't care! They wanted him to die...!  
Then I saw why they had pulled me away. Through the smothering dust, I made out the outline of Digmon, striding to the edge of the mound. The Digimon went to work with a will, digging as quickly and carefully as he ever had while Cody directed him to the place TK had been.  
Finally, Digmon emerged from the trench he'd made into the middle of the heap, wiping dust from his eyes and coughing.  
"Did you-"  
"He's in there, little lady," the Digimon told me gently. "He's alive."  
I sagged in Davis' and Ken's grasp, relief filling me. It was a premature emotion. Ambulances were screaming around the corner, lights blinking. Quickly, Digmon reverted to Upaamon, and all of our Digimon ran to hide in a nearby alley.  
Paramedics poured out of the ambulances, running around and checking for victims. Yolei directed them to the trench; they didn't question its existence, but hurried in with a stretcher. I began to follow them, wanting to see TK, but another paramedic stopped me.  
"It's not safe in there, young lady. I think you'd better come with me."  
"But...but you don't understand! I'm fine! Please..." I tried to pull away from him, but he held me gently and firmly, with an iron grip. There was no help for it; I was taken into an ambulance for treatment.  
I hadn't realized the shape I was in until a gentle doctor inside began to check me over. My knees were scraped and bleeding; my ankle was just beginning to throb; my face was pockmarked with tiny cuts from flying shards of stone, and a bruise was forming, purple and blue, on my arm. But my hands...they were a mess. I had been in shock when I started digging for TK, and I hadn't felt what I was doing to myself. The fragmented cement had scraped my skin raw, and my hands were bleeding sluggishly from dozens of cuts and scrapes. There was rough gray sand shoved under my fingernails and ground into my skin. It had to be tweezed out a bit at a time, but I barely felt it. Every time I closed my eyes, the image of TK disappearing under the falling rubble burst against my eyelids, making me gasp with a pain far worse than the pain in my hands.  
It was my fault. I called out to him. I distracted him. He was about to look, to see, to escape... As the deft fingers of the doctor finished bandaging my hands, I buried my face in them and sobbed.  
When we reached the hospital, the doctor wanted to have me given a more thorough checkup, but I flatly refused to go anywhere until I saw TK. He could have ordered me to wait, but I think he understood what I was going through; he let me go, on my word that I would be back in twenty minutes to have my exam.  
A concerned-looking nurse directed me to room 312. I pounded the button for the elevator, ignoring my protesting hands; the car began to come down, but as I watched the little arrow move toward L, it seemed like it would never reach the lobby. Impatient and afraid, I turned and ran for the stairs.  
Three flights of stairs at a dead run are no mean feat, but I managed it without stopping to rest. Gasping for breath, I ran down the hallway.  
"302...304..." I read off the numbers on the doors as I passed. "308...310...312!"  
As I reached for the doorknob, the door opened. I looked up into the drawn face of my brother's best friend...and my best friend's brother.  
"Matt!" I gasped. "Is he..."  
"You can go see him," he said quietly. He didn't move immediately, and I glanced up, to see a look of intense pain in his expressive blue eyes. Tears threatened to spill over in my own, and I choked.  
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, guilt tearing at my heart. Matt bent down to give me a tight hug before releasing me.  
"Go on," he said, stepping aside and giving me a gentle push toward the door. "Go inside. They're waiting for you."  
I went. Inside, nine children and teenagers and twelve Digimon awaited me, seated around the room in ranks of plastic chairs. Salamon trotted over to me, and butted her head up against my ankles. I picked her up, petting her absently.  
"Hi, you guys..." I said softly. "It's crowded in here."  
"There's a three-visitor rule," Joe said from his seat by the window, "but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures."  
I couldn't work up a smile at his whistling in the dark. Slipping between Ken and Sora, I made my way to the bed in the middle of the room. I couldn't hide my gasp of shock as I saw TK.  
My angel lay silent and pale in the impersonal hospital bed. His golden hair was tousled around his face, and his eyes were closed. His face was almost white, except for a bruise showing purple on his cheek. Tubes ran into his arms, and a heart monitor on the wall emitted soft beeps, sounding almost reluctant in their slow rhythm.  
I felt tears well up in my eyes again, and this time I let them stream silently down my cheeks. In all the time I had known TK, I had never, ever seen him look this fragile.  
A warm arm slid around my shoulders, and I looked up to see my brother, looking back at me with gentle understanding and a sadness in his eyes that mirrored my own. I let myself fall into his arms, and cried.  
"It's all my fault."  
I looked up, my tears stopping in surprise. Davis was standing up, his face haunted.  
"What?" I said, stunned.  
"It's all my fault," he repeated, and I saw that his hands were shaking. "I told Flamedramon to fire at that wall. I'm the reason this happened." He paused, swallowing hard. I stared at him, still not sure what was going on... "I didn't mean for it to happen!" he burst out suddenly. "I swear I didn't! I just..." His voice trailed off as he clenched his teeth, looking at the floor, and I saw that his face was streaked with dirt and tears. Even Davis had been crying for my angel.  
"It wasn't your fault, Davis," I said as gently as I could. He stared at me, confused. "It was mine," I continued. Yolei and Davis both began to protest, but I kept talking right over them. "I distracted him, right before the wall fell. If I hadn't, he would have seen the danger and escaped." I hung my head.  
"If anyone's going to take the blame, it's me," Yolei said, standing up with a stubborn look. "I wasn't battling hard enough. If I'd gotten that thing sooner, he wouldn't have been distracted with trying to take it down."  
"No, Yolei," said Ken, also standing. "I told Stingmon to take the battle further down the street. If I hadn't, TK wouldn't have been standing there in the first place."  
"Ken, you can't blame yourself for my mistake!" Yolei cried.  
"You're right," Davis chimed in, "because it wasn't yours. It was mine."  
"None of you should be taking the blame," I wailed. "It's my fault!"  
"SHUT UP!"  
Stunned, we all turned to stare at the smallest member of our team. Cody was on his feet, his green eyes blazing.  
"You guys have all got to stop blaming yourselves!" he continued hotly. "This wasn't anybody's fault, and TK wouldn't want you to feel like you did this. If you're going to blame anyone, blame that Digimon that started all of this by going on the rampage! And stop trying to be all noble-you're just making yourselves feel worse! This isn't helping!"  
A stunned silence followed, and then Davis put a hand on our pocket sage's shoulder.  
"You're right, Cody. Here, you guys, we can't do anything about this whole mess...except forgive each other, and wait for something to happen. Patience isn't my strong point, and neither is apologizing...but...I'm sorry."  
"I'm sorry, too," Yolei whispered.  
"Me, too," Ken echoed, taking Yolei's hand. She looked at him in surprise, and then sighed and gave his hand a grateful squeeze.  
I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry..." I said. The words hurt, but felt surprisingly good.  
"Apology accepted," Matt said, stepping through the door. "On my brother's behalf. I know he'd be touched... Kari, there's a nurse here to see you."  
A woman had followed him into the room. "Miss Kamiya, you're due for your checkup-"  
She froze, staring at the crowded room. Everyone shifted uncomfortably, remembering the three-visitor rule. Her astonished gaze swept the assembled friends.  
"Why are there eleven..."  
Suddenly, she stopped. I think she recognized the pleading in every face present. She seemed to make a spontaneous decision.  
"Three," she corrected herself, looking around the room again. "There are exactly three visitors in this room. And when I come back, there will also be three visitors in this room." The hint in her voice was well taken.  
"We'll draw straws," Tai volunteered. He patted me on the shoulder. "Go get your checkup, Kari. He'll be here when you come back."  
"Will he?" I whispered. Tai sighed and gave me another hug.  
"You'd better go. Hurry back," he said, and I nodded and followed the nurse out.  
The checkup didn't take long. I was walking back to the room, perhaps twenty minutes later, when I heard a commotion behind me. A doctor hurried past me, flanked by an anxious-looking nurse and an aide. I caught a snatch of harried conversation as they passed.  
"...complications. There isn't much time..."  
A stab of fear went through me. "TK..." I gasped. Without further hesitation, I broke into a run. Reaching to door of room 312, I was confronted by the doctor I'd seen a minute earlier, as well as the entire entourage of Digidestined, and TK's parents, all crowded into the room. The looks on their faces sent another jab of fear into my stomach. Ice was cascading down my spine as I pushed through the crowd to TK's bed.  
I didn't need to be a doctor to know that something terrible was happening. TK's face had gone deathly white, and his heartbeat on the monitor was irregular. His breathing was quick and shallow. I swallowed, feeling my heart rising into my throat.  
"No..." I whispered, as the doctor bustled about, trying to figure out how to stop whatever lethal cycle had been set in motion. My mind was spinning. TK couldn't die! Two hours before, he had been cheerfully talking with me as we headed out the door to an easy battle. How did all this happen in two hours?!  
I choked back tears. If TK died, nothing would ever be right again. I could win that photography scholarship I wanted, I could go to Africa and the Amazon, I could be made queen of the world and it wouldn't matter without him there to share it! Clenching my hands into fists, I held my breath, listening to the struggling, erratic beep of the heart monitor and the quiet sobbing of TK's mother...  
The doctor was still trying to fix it, to find what had gone wrong. I watched TK's chest rise, fall...rise...fall... Rise... Fall...  
Fall...  
I gasped for breath, stars sparkling before my eyes; I'd been breathing along with him without realizing it. Trying to get my breath back, I stared at him, waiting for his chest to rise again. Any second now...  
Gradually filtering into my consciousness came a single, high, unending tone. I looked up at the heart monitor, where the sound was coming from.  
A flat green line ran across the screen.  
"TK!"  
Behind me, Nancy burst into tears. I took a step forward, my stomach twisting into a knot.  
"TK!!" I cried again, and ran toward him. The doctor caught my arm, but I wrenched away from him and flung myself across TK's bed, sobbing great, heaving sobs that racked my body. I was empty; my heart was breaking; my soul was spilling out through my eyes to soak the blankets. I never wanted to get up. He couldn't be gone-he couldn't! I lifted my face from his pillow and looked at his still face, reaching out to touch it with trembling fingers.  
His skin was cool. I choked, and cried harder, running my thumb tenderly across his bruised cheek. My tears landed on his face like rain. They ran across his face, making it seem like he was crying with me. But he would never cry again, never laugh again, never look at me with that special something shining in his beautiful blue eyes.  
"Come back," I whispered brokenly. "Please come back..."  
My sight blurred and ran, and a white light spread across my field of vision. I thought it might be that I was going to pass out, but I didn't care Behind me, I heard startled cries and shouts of alarm, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore, not without TK. The light brightened, shining around me. It had to be a reflection of the room lighting on my tears. Closing my eyes, I let my head rest on the pillow next to his, still shaking with grief.  
"TK..." I whispered, brokenly.  
A quiet sound, like a sigh, reached my ears. I froze.  
"Kari?"  
My eyes flew open, and were met by a familiar pair of baby blues. Inexplicable, indescribable, impossible...and real.  
"TK!" I shrieked, and threw my arms around him as joy blossomed in my heart. I heard a muffled thud from somewhere in the room, and cries of relief, wonderment, and delight.  
"Mary, mother of Jesus," the doctor murmured in awe, crossing herself.  
"Oh, TK, you're alive, you're okay! I love you, TK, I love you, don't you ever do that again, don't ever scare me like that again, I thought I was going to die too, oh, TK, I love you!!" I knew that I was babbling, but I didn't give a care. He was alive!  
Moving back just far enough to see my face, TK smiled at me. I saw that not all of the tears on his face were mine. "I love you, too, Kari. And I promise you, I'm not planning on doing this again. It hurt more than enough the first time." He chuckled, and I leaned forward and kissed him firmly.  
Before that had been going on anywhere near long enough for either of us, we were swamped by a crowd of crying, laughing, hysterical friends and family. Reluctantly letting go of each other, we sat up, our faces wet with tears and shining with happiness. I saw Cody and the aide trying to revive the nurse, who had fainted dead away. TK's entire family was trying to hug him at once; Sora and Tai were in a jubilant embrace. Ken's arm was around Yolei's shoulders, and he looked pleased and dumbfounded at the same time. Yolei was crying...and so was Davis! They were grinning through their tears, which were not the bitter tears of loss now, but the sweet ones of relief. Joe and Izzy were grinning like maniacs, and Mimi appeared to be trying to hug everyone in sight.  
The doctor was staring at TK and me as though we had suddenly turned into a pair of potted petunias. I heard laughter, and glanced over at the foot of the bed to see that Matt had finally let go of his brother, only to be caught in a hug by Mimi, who was jumping up and down with glee and rattling poor Matt something awful. Still, you could tell he didn't care; he was as happy as she was.  
I turned to look at TK, and saw that his cheeks were flushed pink...and unmarked.  
"Where's your bruise?" I said in surprise. He blinked and reached up to touch his face.  
"It's gone!" Matt exclaimed. He was right; in fact, TK looked as though he had never been hurt. He was completely healed... I reached out tentatively to touch his face and stopped my hand halfway. It didn't hurt, either! I pulled off the bandages; whole, healthy skin showed underneath.  
"What happened?" I asked, bewildered. My brother had disentangled himself from Sora, and sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed.  
"I'm not sure," he said honestly. "I saw you run to TK...you were saying something... Then there was this flash of light, like you two were...glowing, or something. It kept getting brighter, and then all of a sudden it disappeared, and I heard the heart monitor going again. And then..." He gestured helplessly at TK, who was presently being half-smothered by his hysterical mother. "You know."  
"I know," I echoed, smiling.  
"The only thing I'd ever seen like it...was back when we were kids and that force took control of you. But it couldn't have been that." He frowned. "Could it?"  
I didn't answer. I felt warm to the tips of my toes. In the moment when I needed it the most, that benevolent force had come through for me. Looking at TK's radiant face, I felt a surge of love and gratitude.  
"Thank you," I whispered, closing my eyes. And deep in my soul, something echoed affectionately back...  
*you are welcome. our debt is paid, child of light. love him.*  
*i will,* I answered thankfully, and opened my eyes. My angel was alive, and nothing would ever separate us again. Turning to TK, who had just been released by his mother, I caught him up in another kiss. And this time, though they whistled and cheered, nobody interrupted...  
  
"Hold on to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams go, life is an empty field, covered in snow."*  
  
  
*Quotes belong to those who wrote them. The characters aren't mine, but the story is. If I quoted wrong, forgive me. This fic is dedicated to those loved and lost, who know who they are, wherever they are now. -Bandit O_~*  



End file.
